


re(pair) re(verse)

by atlantisairlock



Category: Machine - Tan Tarn How
Genre: Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Ambiguous Age, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, And Now For Something Completely Different, Angst, Based Off The Studios Fifty Restaging, Dark, F/F, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reverse-verse. Rex and Heng are two broken boys; Lina and Kim are blessed with the curse of being able to fix everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	re(pair) re(verse)

**Author's Note:**

> this whole fic is andrew's fault.

It starts with the computer.

Actually, it starts with Rex, the bugger, because he downright refuses to move with the times and get a Mac. Or at least move beyond the ancient PC sputtering and sparking most disturbingly in the study. Heng's almost glad the damn thing had a temper tantrum and broke down before he got electrocuted trying to manage their finances. As it is, he has to physically restrain the man from taking a wrench to the hardware and convince him to just  _call a repairman already, you idiot._

Classy, mature lady-killer that he is, Rex sulks on the apartment roof for an hour while Heng nurses a headache, flipping through the glorified paperweight on their coffee table that is the Yellow Pages until he comes to the section he needs.  _Computer repair, appliance repair, electronics, this thing must be ten years old, who knows if this is still relevant? -_

a yellowed pamphlet falls onto his lap from between two pages. 

Heng stops, places the book onto the floor and gingerly picks the brochure up. It's very dusty - no surprise there; they haven't touched the Pages since the internet became a Thing. Heng wonders how it got to be stuck inside, where they picked it up from. It looks old enough to have been there since the last time they actually cracked it open. 

It's a simple one-sheet, and most coincidentally it's offering repair services.  _K &L Services. _ _24/7. Reasonable rates. We repair everything._

He raises his eyebrows. "Repair everything, huh?" That's a bold statement to make. Heng wonders if the company's still alive, after all these years, but no harm in checking it out, right?

The call connects after the first ring. The connection is faint, buzzing static in his ear, but Heng puts it down to their crappy landline - Rex is such a pain when it comes to change.  _K &L Services, how may we help you?_

"Hi, uh, I'm calling regarding... I need something repaired."

There is a brief pause.  _May we have your address?_

Oh. That's all? They didn't even ask what needed to be fixed. Heng shrugs minutely to himself and supposes that's the beauty of being a repair service that claims to fix everything. "3 Cairnhill Drive, along Connaught. #13-25. When can you get someone over?" 

_Would two hours from now be convenient for you?_

"Yeah, why not, sure. Thanks." 

_We thank you for your patronage. Please call again._

The line goes dead.

 

 

Two hours later, Heng's in the kitchen wondering how in the  _world_ a thirty-year-old man could  _possibly_ fuck up a perfectly brand-new user-friendly top-load four-tick washing machine not _one day_  after he fucked up a PC. The doorbell rings, and by the time he gets to the door, Rex is there, shaking hands with a  _devastatingly beautiful_ woman. 

"Oh, and this is Heng," Rex breaks off from whatever he was saying, waving his flatmate over. "He's the one who called you. Heng, this is Lina. She's from K&L."

"Nice to meet you," Heng responds. "So if you're L, who's K?"

Lina smiles and takes a swift step to the side. Standing right behind her is a slip of a girl, obviously younger, looking much less comfortable in her own skin. "This is Kim. We work together. We're here to repair whatever needs repairing." She steps past the doorway like she belongs in the house, and it's not lost on Rex how his gaze sticks to her. Her presence is disarming. The whole flat seems to get smaller, as if she's swallowing up all the light.  _Moths to a flame,_ Heng thinks.  _And she is a candle._

"So, what is it you need fixing?"

"Oh, right." Heng knocks himself out of his reverie, leading the way into the study and gesturing to the computer. "There. Our PC. It's dead."

Something crosses Lina's expression, lights up her eyes for a second, and then it vanishes - so quick that Heng's not even sure it was ever there at all. When she turns to face him again, she's got chagrin written all over her face. "Sorry. We don't do computers."

His headache comes back twice as bad. Heng resists the pressing urge to drop his head in his hands and push Rex out of the window. "But... you said... you fix everything."

"We do."

Heng affixes her with a look of utter disbelief. "But not  _computers._ "

"No." 

 _Angels and ministers of grace defend us,_ he thinks. "Well, that's just great. Thanks. I'll go pick up the Yellow Pages again, then."

He's just walking out of the study, looking to take his frustration out on Rex, when Lina speaks again. "We fix washing machines."

 

 

Which is how he ends up at the counter, brewing tea for the repair pair - ha ha - because he would rather die than allow Rex to step into his pristine kitchen and burn it down. He'd manage it, even just boiling water. Kim, apparently, is the boss where it comes to getting her hands dirty vis-a-vis kitchen appliances. She's spent a solid minute engaging in a worrying ritual that involves banging the surface of their wrecked washing machine with a spanner and then listening intently. Heng tries - and fails spectacularly - at Looking Unconcerned while he watches the kettle on the stove.

From the corner of his eye he can see Rex and Lina outside in the living room. They appear to be having a conversation. It seems mild and unthreatening, although Heng can see his body language changing, subtly. Turning towards her, palms open, leaning close. He can't help but sigh. Rex could never resist a pretty woman for long. But then again, he's probably on the rebound. This is a cause for concern. Heng wills the kettle to whistle so he can get out there and diffuse what might turn into _another_ saga. 

He shouldn't have to keep doing this. Have to keep swooping in and saving Rex from himself. He's not a guardian angel, and Rex is a grown man who ostensibly can make decisions for himself.

But he keeps doing it anyway.

 

 

Lina nods her thanks for the tea with a charming smile, and one look at Rex tells Heng everything he needs to know.

 _Don't do it!_ Heng wants to grab him by the lapels and scream.  _You know what happened with the other one!_

But all he does is set another steaming cup down and face Rex with a frown. "We are buying a new computer." 

Lina laughs into her mug - he's gone, he's gone, he's gone. He has to stop this. He has to.

 

 

 

Heng does the inconceivable - he lets Rex into his kitchen.

"Don't touch  _anything else,_ " he warns, placing the now-empty mugs onto the tray. "Put these in the sink. Wash them with soap and warm water. Lay them on the rack upside down and  _leave them alone._ "

"I am thirty years old," Rex snarks back and stalks off into the kitchen with a huff. Heng rolls his eyes.  _Like that's supposed to mean anything?_

Lina watches him go with a smile on her face. "He's cute."

 _No. Not again,_ Heng thinks, and blurts out what he prepared. "Go out with me."

She arches one perfect eyebrow, and he repeats. "Tonight. Dinner. Anything, anywhere. You're beautiful. You're intriguing. I like you. Go out with me."

Those aren't all lies. She is beautiful. She is intriguing. She is a mystery, and Heng wants to delve inside, take her apart with hands and teeth, figure out how she ticks, this repairwoman who repairs everything except computers. But right now that's of secondary concern. Right now he has only one aim, and that is:  _protect._

_This you protect:_

_Rex._

He can't hear above the blood roaring tidal-loud in his ears, but Lina nods with the slightest movement of her head. "Okay."

 

 

Washing cups. That's how Rex finds himself in Heng's beloved kitchen.  _Washing cups._ With his illicit-lover-cum-flatmate lecturing him as if he were six years old. He's tempted to drop one on the ground just so he can see Heng get pissed, but then he actually thinks about Heng getting pissed and decides against it. 

The methodical soaping is punctuated by clanks and bangs and muffled grunting from behind, and once Rex's laid the mugs out neatly on the rack he goes over to squat beside Kim. She's got their washer laid the wrong way up on the floor, poking around at the insides with a screwdriver. There are a couple of foreign-looking parts in a Tupperware box by her knee, and Rex studies them with interest. Her cup of tea is still sitting on the ledge, lukewarm now, half-full. 

 _She's pretty_ , Rex thinks. In a more delicate way. Not like Lina. But something. And hardly _delicate_ , if she's got grease on her hands and that determined look on her face and she's staring at him like he's a particularly annoying flea. "Yes?"

"How's it going?"

"I think it's the belt. But I can't be sure. It's got a lot of complicated parts, these newfangled things on the market. Needs a different touch." Kim frowns irritably, setting the screwdriver down. "I don't think I'll be able to get it done by this afternoon."

"Come by tonight," Rex offers before he knows what he's really saying, and Kim barks a laugh at that. "I might."

 

 

"We need to come again tonight, after dinner," Kim explains to Lina in the kitchen, wiping her hands off on a towel. "It's bad."

"I know. I can feel it too." Lina gives her a meaningful look. "But he asked me out for dinner."

A sidelong glance. "And you said yes? When you know  _why_ he did it?"

Lina rests a hand on her apprentice's shoulder. "We are repairmen. We have our tools, even if they were meant for a different age. We do what we can." Her grip tightens. "You do what you can tonight."

She meets her eyes. "I will."

 

 

 

Heng expects the dinner to be awkward. He wasn't planning ahead, after all, and he feels sorely underdressed in this fancy steak place. Maybe it's the light, but there's something ethereal about Lina, sitting across the table, looking intently at the menu. As if she would dissolve if he touched her, a bubble popping in the sunlight to leave nothing, no trace that it was ever there. When she speaks, it's like the whole world goes silent.

And she does. "So what's the deal with you and Rex?"

Heng shifts in his seat, taking an exceptionally long drink of water. "There is no deal."

She plays with her fork, an action that seems unsuited for someone who commands such a presence. "You're rather protective of him. You look sad..." She lets the fork drop with a dull thud. "When you think he can't see you."

"That's his fault," Heng mutters. "He doesn't know what's good for him. I'm younger than him - but as far as I remember, I've always had to take care of him."

"Was it a girl?"

_A girl. But not just any girl._

"He's not good with girls, all right? He had someone. For a long time. He really loved her, but she left. He's only just beginning to heal." Heng takes a deep breath. "I can't let you hurt him. I can't let anyone hurt him. I'm all he has left." 

Lina gives him a long look. "It's not him I want." 

And Heng just - looks back. 

Even before the steak arrives, she reaches across, grabs his collar, knocks the glass down onto the plate with a clatter, pulls him out of the restaurant to the dimly-lit back alley, kisses him breathless, kisses him like the world is ending, and maybe for them it is.

"Come home with me," he says, and for precious few seconds, it doesn't feel like a mistake.

 

 

 

It's nine p.m. and Rex sits on the kitchen counter to watch Kim work - he can't deny he gets some childish satisfaction out of imagining a livid Heng scrubbing the surface clean with bleach. She glances over at him once or twice, but doesn't seem to mind his presence, although he gets a clear vibe that she'll chew his head off if he bothers her. It's therapeutic, soothing, watching her in her element. 

The peace is disrupted half an hour later by Kim tossing a gear onto the floor and growling. "It's shot. Your washing machine is a goner. We need to get in new parts. That's going to take at least five working days - ordering, processing, payment, delivery, and actually fixing it."

"Heng's not going to pleased," Rex replies merrily, swinging his legs, and Kim sighs. "Still cheaper than buying a new washer. I promise. We'll give you a good quote." She huffs. "Well. I guess I'm done for the day."

He watches her pack her tools, snap her toolbox shut, and hops off to kneel by her. "Come to the roof with me." 

There is a look in her eyes when she stares at him that says:  _I am not your starlight, I am not your sun._ But all he knows is that he gets lost in them.

 

 

She does follow him to the roof in the end, with a bottle of red and a packet of crisps. He sits with his head in her lap and stares up at twinkling satellites and the occasional plane flying by, red lights blinking, and with every glass of wine his tongue gets looser. It starts easy, simple - how he dreamed of a feather-white angel on his shoulder when he was a child, how his pencil skidded across pages of a diary and told more than he ever intended. She tells him how they travel, how they move, how the both of them have never truly had a place they could call home. And then it moves on, deeper. The love of his life. The loves of her life. Of apologies, and farewells, and the rawest ache yawning open like a cavern in their hearts. 

 _You are not a bad person,_ she whispers;  _hurt me,_ he answers, and this is what he wants to remember for the rest of his life: her small hands wrapped around his throat when her lips meet his, her thighs bracketing his beneath the velvet night, straddling the edge of nothingness. 

 

 

Heng doesn't know what he expected to get back to. He imagined a wall, the floor, a bed. Not emptiness. Not like this.

_This you protect:_

_Rex._

"I told you it wasn't me you needed to worry about," Lina says while he panics, observing the empty rooms and the mess of tools matter-of-factly. "Check the roof."

This is not what Heng wants to see:  _them._

This is what he does: exactly that.

 

 

The only one who seems to sense the tension in the air the next morning, no surprise, is him. Heng can't look Rex in the eye, or perhaps he refuses to, and maybe part of that has to do with the way there's still a hunger overlaid in the older man's movements around Lina, maybe it has to do with the way his lips still burn from the night before. 

Kim greets Heng with a smile and a statement. "We need to order parts, and they'll come in about a week."

"Great, good, see you in a week." He answers, desperate to push the girls out of the flat. "Thanks - how much will it - "

"See them in a week?" Rex interrupts, stepping forward and curling his fingers against Kim's. "Why don't you just stay here? We have a guest room. You don't have a proper place, right? That's what you said. You just keep moving." 

Kim squeezes his hand, presses her cheek against his shoulder. "We'd be a burden."

At that, Rex turns sharply to Heng with a plea in his eyes - and that's his Achilles heel. What he's never been able to resist. He would burn up a sun if that was what it took. He exhales, long and low, refuses to meet Lina's gaze. "Fine, whatever. Stay in the guest room if you want to." 

He turns on his heel and shuts himself in the study.

 

 

 

"Are you jealous?"

"Wow, like that totally doesn't kill the mood," Heng answers drily, loosening his grip in her hair. "What am I supposed to be jealous of, pray tell?"

"You are not stupid," Lina says mildly, sliding off him and curling up by his side under the sheets. "But neither am I."

He laughs. It is a bitter sound that rolls off his tongue, too harsh and too cold. "The only stupid one here is Rex."

Lina traces a scar on his collarbone with her fingertip before pressing a kiss to it. "Good boys don't tell lies."

There are mysteries, and she is still an open case file. He wants to break her down to her atoms, study each one under a microscope. Heng settles for a bruise he sucks a violent purple along the swath of her shoulder. "I am not a good boy."

 

 

They are so sickeningly in love that it makes Heng cringe. And Rex is oblivious, of course, like he's always been. Just a stupid boy, with stupid dreams, who never learns. When he confronts Heng before he leaves for work, Heng almost wants to laugh. Wants to choke on the pebble in his throat, wants to wring Rex's neck and scream it into his thick, thick skull.

"Why do you keep staying away now? All your late nights. Shutting yourself in your room. With Lina." He says her name like a betrayal, like a traitor's vow, and Heng stares at him for thirty seconds before he just  _laughs._ Giggles like a fool, so shrill and so strident that Rex actually steps back. "Are you  _jealous?_ " It sounds like he's parroting Lina, and maybe he is. Maybe he is. "Are  _you_ jealous? You?"The heels of his hands shove against Rex's collarbones, and he topples back against the wall. "What makes you think  _you_ have any right to be?"

Rex winces, a look of hurt crossing his face. "Do you love her?"

"Not everyone is as stupid as you," Heng spits, and leaves.

 

 

The washer's parts come in a week later. Kim kisses Rex goodbye, watches him go off for work, then proceeds to station herself in the kitchen and take the washing machine apart in totality. Lina sits by her, passing her a tool from the box whenever she needs it, keeping close to her. There's never a moment they aren't touching, and that's the way they like it when they're alone.

"When is it going to be done?"

Kim doesn't stop working. "Soon. And then we can move on." She rocks back on her haunches with a sigh of satisfaction, placing the last screw into a box to keep aside till they fix it back up later. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

Lina doesn't answer immediately, and Kim turns to face her with a sharp, cutting stare. "Isn't it?" 

"Haven't you  _ever_ thought about staying? Haven't you ever considered that we might find something worth settling down with? Settling down  _for?"_

The measuring tape in Kim's hand is flung across the kitchen, leaving a massive scratch in the leg of the dining table - Lina idly thinks that Heng is going to be  _so pissed_. "Nobody is worth it! This is what we  _do!_ We were given our orders. It doesn't matter if we've been abandoned now. We  _follow them!_ That's what we do. That's what we have to do. We fix things. We fix things." 

"Well, maybe we should learn to fix  _ourselves,_ " Lina replies dangerously, picking the measuring tape up and holding it in her hands. "Maybe we weren't abandoned, maybe it's just  _over._ Maybe we are worthy of this. Maybe we _are_ worthy of being loved." 

With measured movements, Kim reaches over and snatches the tape back. "We have nothing. We want nothing. We are nothing." 

"If you really believe that, then stop hurting him. Stop leading him down that path. You know what happened with the other one! I don't understand - if you're so willing, so ready to leave, then why settle at all?" 

"This is what we do," Kim repeats like a mantra, a haunted blankness glooming over her features. She starts working on the machine again, ignoring Lina completely. "This is what we do."

 

 

"If she's going to hurt him, then take her away  _now._ " 

"Do you think I don't wish I could?"

"Isn't she  _your_ apprentice?"

She is beautiful. She has never lost that affective aura that rendered him speechless and made Rex fall in lust the first time these girls ever stepped into their home. But her laugh, jagged, jarring, bites him down to the bone. "Whatever made you think that she was my apprentice in any more than name?" 

"She's going to hurt him." Heng whispers, breaths coming too fast. "She's going to hurt him. Why?"

Lina's expression is pained. "Have I ever told you? About where we were before we came here." Heng shakes his head, and Lina takes it as her cue to go on. "There was a girl. She was like Rex; she fell head over heels for Kim, even though she was promised to someone else. She gave us a place in her home, and all was good, until he found out. He came to kill us in the dead of night, and we had to run. We had to run without even saying goodbye. We jumped out of a third-floor window, ran for miles until we were safe. We never went back. She never knew. That's why. That's why she's so afraid. That's why she tries to hurt people before she gets hurt. She's like Rex. She's still in love - with the wrong person."

For a moment, Heng looks so overwhelmed that he can't say a word, before he laughs weakly and sinks back onto the bed. "What was that, the 19th century?"

Lina doesn't answer, just wraps her arms around him and murmurs meaningless comforts in his ear.  _This is what we do,_ she thinks, but words don't resolve guilt, not really. 

 

 

Kim starts distancing herself from Rex four weeks after the first time they ever meet. Half of the washing machine's inner workings are still strewn around the floor at the back of the kitchen, and Heng is almost getting used to the chaos he has to avoid whenever he goes to makes them breakfast. 

Heng can  _feel_ it. Kim is colder, comes home later. Rex gets drunk a lot more often, has that puppy-dog look that Heng's all too familiar with.

It's only a matter of time.

 

 

Rex is there in the kitchen when Kim finishes fixing the machine. She plugs it in, turns it on, listens to it hum. "It's done." She turns to face Rex without any emotion in her countenance. "We have to go."

_"What?"_

"We have to go." She repeats, pushing him aside to walk out of the kitchen. "We are leaving."

Something like desperation rises inside him, breaks like a dam after a storm. "No. No, don't go. I can - I can  _follow._ I can go with you." Her silence turns the pain into anger, and he wants to shake her senseless, wants to scream. "Is this what you do? Ingratiate yourself into people's lives and pretend to fix them? And then leave and break everything apart again?"

"You told me to hurt you, didn't you? So I did." 

"Not like this!"

"Be careful what you wish for," Kim says, resting one hand against his cheek. "You are not a bad person."

When Heng finds him later, he's on his knees. 

 

 

He finds Kim at the rooftop, drinking straight from a bottle of beer, and goes right up to her. "Why?"

There is a familiar blank nothingness in her eyes. "Why what?" 

 _"Why?"_ Heng screams, slamming a fist into drywall and feeling it flake beneath the impact. "Why do you do this? Why did you do this to him? He is  _breaking,_ Kim. He is - "

"Broken. Not breaking, broken. Like you are. Like I am. It's nothing new." Kim takes his hand, specks of blood flecking his knuckles, and touches her lips fleetingly against the skin. "I chose him. Did you think you chose to intervene and save him from Lina? _I_ chose him from the beginning. Because I knew I'd be able to leave him when I had to go."

The implications settle in on Heng and steal the breath from his lungs. "No."

"Yes."

"Don't touch me."

She kisses like a whirlwind.

She doesn't kiss like _her_.

 

 

"So I guess we're the last permutation, aren't we?"

Rex's skin crawls. "Don't say it like that."

"But that's how it is."

"Do you love him?"

Lina inhales sharply. "I _do_."

"But not enough, evidently."

"Maybe that's another curse we're plagued with." A pause. "Hold me."

"I can't - "

"Hold me."

He holds her.

 

 

It's midnight, and Kim wakes Lina up with a lingering kiss. "It's time."

"The computer. Did you - "

"Yes."

There's a faint smile on her face as she pulls on her shirt in the darkness, the room lit only by a sliver of moonlight. "No goodbyes, then?"

"Let's go."

They step out of their room, making sure everything is pristine, as if they were never there at all. Lina's already got a hand on the doorknob when another one covers her own. 

"Heng."

His eyes glow, though they can barely see them. "Who  _are_ you?"

Lina and Kim exchange glances, and Kim looks down at the toolbox in her hands. "I wish we knew. It's not easy, remembering after so long."

"You can still find out." He's begging. He knows it's futile, but he's begging. "Stay. Please."

"Do you think you can help us remember who we once were? Before this?" Mocking. Pitying. "It's not that simple."

"I love you." He hesitates. "Both of you. I could."

"That has never been the solution. This is a game, Heng. We are merely players. All we know is to fix things. We fix everything." 

Heng snickers. "Except computers?" 

"Except people." 

"We try to fix them. We exist to fix them. But we cannot fix them, because people are not meant to be fixed. That is our blessing, that is our curse, that is our it." They speak as one, voices mingling, sounding unearthly, sounding like something beyond mortal - and deep inside him, somewhere, Heng  _knows._

He slides the deadbolt open and opens the door for them. "Goodbye."

They melt into the shadows with the barest hint of a nod. Heng gives them three seconds, then flips a switch and peers out into the corridor.

Nothing.

He stands there for what seems like an eternity, one hand on the doorframe, before the lights finally go off again.

 

 

He wakes up in the same bed as Rex, for the first time in a long time.

"Morning," Rex says sleepily, yawning as he wraps his arms around Heng in an embrace. The sun is streaming in and there are no tears on his face. Heng just lies awake and  _wonders._ Wonders if the past four weeks have been erased from existence, have been negated in the grander scheme of things. Wonders if Rex would furrow his brow in confusion and ask  _who?_ if he mentioned Kim during breakfast. Wonders if the washing machine will be broken down again tomorrow.

Already it's slipping away from him, Lina's features blurring with Kim's in his mind. The memory of the past four weeks disappearing, vanishing somewhere in the mist. He closes his eyes and lets the sunbeams scatter like dust on his face. There's something tingling beneath his skin, sparking like embers in the ash. 

They brushed the edge of magic with their fingertips, and it didn't turn out the way he thought it would. 

But maybe it didn't need to.

 

 

He can't find the brochure, no matter how hard he searches. They didn't leave any tools. The guestroom looks untouched. There is no listing in the yellow pages.

He knows he is forgetting. He knows Rex has forgotten.

But then, they no longer need repairmen. They don't need fixing.

They fix each other.


End file.
